Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Common House Use

[Rob Sandelin (floriferous]

One of the great fears resident in people is the concept of liability. This
fear can sometimes override common sense to the point of absurdity.
Insurance companies and lawyers deal with adversarial liability issues every
day, cohousing communities rarely if ever deal with it. So the amount of
"protection" advocated by insurance companies and lawyers needs to be
adjusted to the on the ground realities. The normal reality of adversarial
lawsuits between strangers is not your community reality.  The whole POINT
of living in a community is to build relationships between neighbors.
Assuming you accomplish this, then the need for lawyers and their
protections against adversarial lawsuits is largely  diminished. There are
very few lawsuits within cohousing communities, and they are the rare
exceptions rather than the rule. This does not mean you should not have
liability insurance, but worrying about lawsuits should be low on your
radar.

So getting worried about whether asking for donations for commonhouse use by
members construes a contract of liability, is in my experience, putting far
too much energy into liability worries which is not necessary or useful.
Hopefully, once you have lived together for a few years you will understand
this. 


Rob Sandelin
Sharingwood resident  of 16 years
Naturalist, Writer
The Environmental Science School
http://www.nonprofitpages.com/nica/SVE.htm
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-----Original Message-----
From: Dave and Diane [mailto:daveanddee [at] verizon.net] 
Sent: Thursday, February 22, 2007 5:01 AM
To: cohousing-l [at] cohousing.org
Subject: Re: [C-L]_ Common House Use

Hi all,
We are having a big discussion about this in our community now. There is a
debate going back and forth about whether or not it's OK to ask for a
donation for use of the common space in terms of its affect on insurance.
One member asked our insurance agent if asking for a donation made CH use
effectively into a "contract" and increased our exposure to liability. 
The
answer was yes, and we would be safer not to have any money change hands.
Then another member asked the same question (board changed) and the answer
was no, it doesn't affect our liability.

How have other communities handled this issue?

--Diane(:^|
outreach facilitator
jp cohousing  617-522-2209
Box 300420 boston ma
http://www.jpcohousing.
-  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  - "The people
who surround you define the quality of your life."



On Wed, 21 Feb 2007, at 10:35:49 -0800, Rob Sandelin wrote:

> <snip>
>
> We allow for private use but charge a fee for such use. And all 
> private use has to have a member sponsor, who is responsible for the 
> cleanup and theoretically damages (we have never had any damages from 
> an event) Members have used the commonhouse for private paid 
> workshops, in a couple of cases we have also done this as a fundraiser 
> for community needs. I hosted a facilitators retreat that raised 
> $1,000 to pay for some improvements in the community. So private use 
> for money can also benefit the community.
>

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